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LOS ANGELES — Russell Simmons has made a career — and a fortune — programming to audiences that
the mainstream media have ignored.

The hip-hop impresario co-founded the Def Jam label, launched the Phat Farm clothing line,
started a film and television production company and branched out into stage productions with
Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.

Now Simmons is moving to Los Angeles to spearhead ADD Video, a YouTube channel designed for what
he describes as a “post-racial America.” It will offer lifestyle programming and showcase current
and rising stars from entertainment, music, fashion, sports and film, with a focus on the kind of
diversity that the mainstream media are missing.

“Hollywood doesn’t realize — it’s not like ‘Do more black stuff,’ ” Simmons said. “I’m an
American. I don’t want to be patronized. I want to be included.”

Simmons’ ADD Video is among a number of new YouTube channels aimed at African-American,
Asian-American and Latino viewers who already flock to the site by the millions. YouTube executives
see an opportunity to fund original programming for these audiences, which are underserved by
traditional media.

Some of the most recognizable names in the entertainment industry — including rappers Jay-Z,
Queen Latifah and Diddy, and former BET Entertainment President Reginald Hudlin — will unveil
channels in the coming weeks, joining those already launched by former Los Angeles Laker Shaquille
O’Neal, Grammy Award-winning musician Pharrell Williams and
The Original Kings of Comedy producer Walter Latham. YouTube also announced last week that
it would fund a new generation of original channels in Europe.

Traditional media — particularly film and television — have been slow to embrace
multiculturalism, either in front of the camera or behind it.

“It’s still a pretty male and white environment,” said Adam Moore, SAG-AFTRA’s director of equal
opportunity and diversity. “We have a long way to go for our screens to represent the world we all
walk around in.”

Therein lies the opportunity for YouTube. Minorities watch videos on YouTube at a higher rate
than white viewers, according to a study by the ratings firm Nielsen. Roughly 6 in 10
African-Americans and Latinos in the United States access the site in a typical month, as do 7 in
10 Asian-Americans. Fifty-eight percent of whites spend time on YouTube.

“These voices aren’t really heard loudly on other platforms,” said Malik Ducard, YouTube’s
director of content partnerships. It’s a “really amazing and large opportunity we have with online
distribution for the African-American marketplace, for the Latino and for the Asian audiences that
hunger for content. And we are happy to get it and serve it up for them.”

Entertainment executives are eager to fill the entertainment void.

“We all know where the world’s going,” O’Neal said. “People are always on their phones, on their
laptops, on their iPads. When YouTube made the announcement (last fall) that they wanted to do
original channels, I thought it would be good to do a Shaq comedy channel.”

Comedy Shaq Network has enlisted veteran writers Michael Anthony Snowden (White Chicks,
In Living Color) and Rodney Barnes (Boondocks,
Everybody Hates Chris) to develop original programs featuring popular talent from film,
live comedy and television. Noted comedians Kevin Hart, Gary Owen and Katt Williams already have
had stand-up segments featured on the channel.

O’Neal’s business partner, Codeblack Entertainment CEO Jeff Clanagan, said Comedy Shaq is the
outgrowth of an entertainment strategy that began three years ago with
Shaq’s All-Star Comedy Jam tour. Film of that first live show was licensed as a Showtime
comedy special and later sold 350,000 DVDs.

Now O’Neal’s comedy channel is the centerpiece of a growing online network that also will offer
original series aimed at the 18- to 34-year-old males who will drop by Comedy Shaq for laughs.

Clanagan learned, while accompanying Hart on the European leg of his comedy tour, that YouTube
is the best media platform for reaching Comedy Shaq’s audience.

“We interviewed people in every market, and the way that everybody found out about him was
through YouTube,” Clanagan said. “YouTube is the place (people) learn about American artists and
American culture.”